3.5, rounded up because this was exactly the diversion I needed during this quarantine.

It's here! The highly anticipated sequel to 2015's bestselling The Royal We, The Heir Affair is finally making its way into the public. Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan have delivered more of the same-- which is to say that while it's not exactly earth shattering, if you enjoyed the first book in the series, you'll be chuffed with this follow up.

For anyone wondering whether they *have* to have read The Royal We to be able to get into this book, the answer is no. There are plenty of moments where the authors fill you in on what you might have missed. That being said, their recaps serve better as reminders of what you might have read and forgotten in the 5 years between books (no need to re-read). I'd recommend taking the full tour de Lyons, if you've not read the first book.

All of your favorite characters are back, in their full glory, perhaps none more so than the apple of every reader's eye, Freddie, as well as a few new characters. Most notably, Princess Daphne, who, at first blush, seems rather obnoxious, but then I really grew to like her. No more Bex-Freddie shenanigans... Well... Okay, yes, there is tons of dramz with Freddie. But this time, the scandal isn't nearly as frustrating as before. This book isn't quite as 'fun' as its predecessor, but it matures alongside its characters. Though Nick is his typical, Manic Pixie Dream Boy-self, he finally lets his hair down (or, at least, what's left of it), albeit for brief romps, such as in ski gondolas. Surprisingly, one of my favorite elements of this book is the relationship forged between Queen-Grandmother Eleanor and Bex. I love the snarky Queen, and am I the only one who felt badly for her? I mean, yes, she's a slave to the Crown and forces others to bend to its might and antiquated traditions... But, guys, she's A SLAVE! TO THE CROWN! The real villain here is Prince Dick, amiright? Ugh. I didn't like him before and I like him even less here. Oh, yeah, and Clive.

If you had a problem with the length of The Royal We, this one's even longer. Great, if you're enjoying the journey (as I did); not so much if you're just looking to add numbers to your 'read' list.

I loved The Royal We, and when I found out we were getting a sequel I immediately started dreaming about what the book would be about. The Heir Affair was not what I was expecting... but not necessarily in a bad way.

The Heir Affair picks up after Bex and Nick's Royal Wedding Gone Awry. Their ex-friend publishes a story alleging that Bex had an affair with Nick's younger brother Freddie, and Bex becomes the most hated Royal Bride ever. Bex and Nick, facing a country that hates them and a very unhappy Royal Family, run away. The Heir Affair covers Bex and Nick coming to grips with the complicated relationships between each of them and the myriad members of the royal family, especially Freddie. We see them trying to find their place in the Royal Family, and fighting for what they want in their lives. And we get a juicy side story about Princess Georgina, the Queen's little sister (if Nick=Will and Bex=Kate, Georgina=Margaret).

Like The Royal We, The Heir Affair takes place over several years. A LOT happens, and we get to see the characters grow and mature. One of the things I liked about The Royal We was how REAL it seemed. I wondered at the time if it was because the authors used tidbits from the real Kate and Will, but now that they are venturing into territory that doesn't as closely resemble the reality of the British royal family, I see that's just how they write. This isn't a typical Royal Rom-Com. We don't always get what we want. Life, feelings, and relationships are complicated, and I love that The Heir Affair captures that. That being said, there is plenty of romance.

So, if you love royalty, love reality, and love drama... check out The Heir Affair. But make sure to read the Royal We first (and not just because it is a spectacular book). I recommend The Royal We to everyone, and am happy to say that the sequel is just as spectacular. I really hope we get to revisit the Lyons family again!

Bex Porter and Prince Nicholas, heir to the throne, finally make it to the altar. As the adorable couple ultimately survived their rocky road to matrimony, they are devastated after the ceremony when a friend turned paparazzi publicizes a scandal they can not escape. After they spend their first newlywed months hiding out in the countryside, the happy couple returns to face the music and try to regain the Queen’s favor. The ups and downs of their rollercoaster life gently mimics royals we see on the news and the emotions many young couples experience. I waited five years for this sequel after devouring The Royal We, unfortunately it dragged for me and the characters felt completely contrived.

Overall this book was enjoyable. Slipping into the secret lives of "the royals". There were times the dialogue was hard to follow, there seemed to be a lot of misplaced banter just to make the characters seem witty but it honestly just messed with the flow of the story.

That took a strange turn, but, at the end of the day, I got to re-experience the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, but with the queen of England in tow. I'm calling it good.

This book is a pretty perfect sequel to The Royal We. It has the same great blend of royal gossip insideriness and well developed characters grounded in real emotion. The plot veers into the outlandish regularly, but for the fun of it and aforementioned groundedness of the characters' emotional responses, I didn't mind at all. I'd definitely read and recommend others from these two.

The follow up to “The Royal We,” was just as fun and enjoyable to the original. I do wish we could have gotten a little more from some of the characters we got to enjoy that first time around (and more comeuppance for Clive!). I do feel like it ends with an opening for a final book to complete a trilogy, so fingers crossed.

The Royal We is one of my comfort reads. When I'm feeling blue and everything is a drag, I pick it up. I've recommended it to my coworkers and patrons alike. It's just a _good book_.
I've had my own copy of The Heir Affair preordered since it was first available on Amazon and literally squealed when I saw I was approved for the ARC on Netgalley. I can confidently say that it lived up to every single expectation I had for it, and more. It was an absolute perfect balm to the Covid-19 stress. I laughed, I very nearly cried, I will reread it again!
100,000 stars out of 10.

It's an alterna-history that's every bit as juicy as The Crown, just much less sedate. In this alternate version of events, the British royal family has been sent reeling by a scandal involving its heirs and the American woman who's married into the family and has gotten way more than she bargained for. What's most fascinating about this book is how it balances out the plight of its modern characters - Prince Nicholas, his wife Bex, and his brother Freddie - with the older generations, drawing parallels and reminding us of two things: 1) history always repeats, and 2) wealth and power don't exempt anyone from deep personal pain. It's a book with a lot of humor and pain, often at the same time - in short, it's what we think (or at least, we'd like to think) modern royalty is like.

I really loved this book. It was a great follow up to the first book, The Royal We. It gave us everything we loved in the first book with it's own unique story line. It will be the summer read that everyone is craving!

I have been waiting for so long for a sequel to one of my favorite books, The Royal We. I've read that book at least four times since the first time I picked it up. I fell in love with Bex ,Nick, and Freddie. This story is loosely based on the story of Prince William, Kate Middleton and Prince Harry. This book was all about friendship and family relationship, not forgetting romance. The story ended up with an open storyline, but did gives us a final that we could have been happy with....

Then they announced The Heir Affair and I lost it. I was so excited. Were these women clairvoyants? Subjects that they touch on are so similar to what is happening to the royal family today. We thought Bex and Nick had there happy ending, but did they really? I also really wanted this book to be more focused on Freddie and it was, sort of. I do want to say that this book does touch on Infertility, so be mindful of that. This story was full of drama and Clive is back at it again.

I laughed, I teared up and I loved the writing. While I loved the first book so much more, I still loved this book. I hope they continue the story with another book. I feel like they really can!

I really loved The Royal We and have been looking forward to the follow up. Sadly, this one just did not deliver as hoped.

The Heir Affair
The Royal We #2
by: Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan @fuggirls ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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I loved The Royal We, so I was super excited to receive an ARC of The Heir Affair from @netgalley and @grandcentralpub! *The pub date for this book is 07/07/2020.*
The last time I read The Royal We was on the way back from New Orleans after Clemson lost the 2018 Sugar Bowl - it was a 12 hour drive home to a Charleston, and The Royal We was the bright spot. Reading The Heir Affair during the Coronavirus Quarantine 2020 was also a bright spot.
The Heir Affair starts directly after Nick and Bex’s wedding and continues through their first few years of marriage and all that entails - dealing with the backlash of their wedding, moving into a new home, thinking about starting a family, learning to be the Duke and the Duchess, etc. The secondary plot line deals with Nick’s great-aunt Georgina; Bex and Nick move into her home and start going through her belongings and get more than they bargain for. There is also closure on Lacey and Freddie.
If you loved The Royal We, you’ll love this just as much!
#callireads2020 #royalreads #theheiraffair #theroyalwe #netgalley

Caveat 1: I thought this would follow suit and be a play on Harry & Meghan, not realizing that the first one wasn’t actually based on Will & Kate until the acknowledgements at the end of this one. My bad! I’m late to this whole royal thing.

Caveat 2: I was very ill while reading, but also so excited for it and chose to power through. Being so sick for sure colored my reaction to the story.

Those caveats aside, the book is a bit sadder and deeper than the first. It wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be, but it did tell Bex, Nick, and Freddie’s stories so well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for this eARC.

This book was a lot. Like what on earth did I actually just read?

The Heir Affair picks up where we left off in The Royal We. Nick and Bex are hiding out after the disastrous wedding in a teeny town in Scotland, aptly named Wigtown as both of them are sporting particularly heinous wigs in an effort to remain undetected. Fun fact, Wigtown is in fact a real place and it looks delightful! Anyways, back to the story. The rest of the book revolves around Bex and Nick adjusting to married life and dealing with whatever happened with Freddie in the last book. Freddie and Nick spend much of the book at odds, over again the nonsense that happened with Freddie and Bex in the previous book. That whole thing never made any sense to me, on top of being insanely cringey (if I have to read ‘killer’ one more time I’ll scream), their relationship/feelings never felt like it was actually there, which made the fact that Bex acted like a jealous twit for a good portion of this book really strange.

There was an insane amount of crazy unrealistic batshit crazy dialogue, but that dear reader, is for you to discover on your own. There were certainly parts of the book that I enjoyed, and I can see how others might enjoy it, but I really don’t think it’s for me. Which is a shame as British rom-com chick-lit is like my number 1 guilty pleasure, but oh well. I think the books main problem is that none of the characters make sense, like what is Bex’s deal and how is she constantly making pretty much the same mistakes over and over with only slight variations on the theme. Also the plot was completely bonkers, like the Queen and baseball?? I’m not going to even get into the meat of the bonkers plot as I don’t want to spoil anything, but rest assured it is insane. The dialogue is ridiculous, which is at times definitely the point, but other’s I’m not quite sure.

The Royal We is my favorite book in the whole world so naturally I had high hopes for The Heir Affair. Spoiler alert: I LOVED IT. Heather and Jessica allowed us back into the world of Bex and Nick (and everyone else around them) with such grace and brought us new depth to the characters at the same time; this book truly blew my expectations out of the water. I loved getting to learn more about Queen Eleanor and Princess Georgina's backstories along with the twists and turns that accompanied their relationship.

Heather and Jessica's writing is superb - I could truly visualize each scene throughout the book and was totally engrossed throughout. I appreciate that they don't skimp on the material either - they go there with tough subjects not normally found in romance or romance-adjacent novels and it's a breath of fresh air. It's also not common to find a book that will make you both cry and literally laugh out loud multiple times, but The Heir Affair helped me do just that.

I can't wait to pick up my hard copy of the book when it's released this summer and will be telling all of my friends to do the same. I can only wish now for a third book, but if that doesn't happen I'm so thankful we were able to catch up with the Duke and Duchess of Clarence once again. In the trying times we're living in, The Heir Affair was the perfect escape and for me felt like catching up with old friends. I look forward to rereading this book for many years to come. Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the ARC, and to Heather and Jessica for creating two amazing books and a universe that feels like a warm hug every time I dive back in.

After loving the first in the series, I'd been looking forward to revisiting Cocks and Morgan's alternate version of the most famous Royal family. The sequel not only did not disappoint, it left me gasping! I was so happy to see Bex and Nick and everyone else again!

I have been eagerly awaiting a sequel to The Royal We ever since I stayed up all night reading it when it came out years ago (I've subsequently read it a few times and own it in paperback and on my kindle, so I can always have it nearby!)

The Heir Affair did not disappoint. It was a delight to spend additional time with all of the characters I grew to love in The Royal We; I read this book slowly over a week to spread out the experience. While the first book focused on the romance between royal heir Nick and his American girlfriend Bex, The Heir Affair follows Nick, Bex, Nick's brother Freddie, and their friends and family following Nick's and Bex's marriage. The group weathers tabloid gossip, family drama, and fertility woes both in the public eye and behind closed doors, all with a wonderfully warm and wry tone I've grown to love over years reading Cocks's and Morgan's site Go Fug Yourself. The duo are exceptional writers, and they know how to craft a compelling novel.

The book did feel a bit unfinished, however; is there another volume planned? I was disappointed that Clive got no comeuppance at all, and I didn't feel that the love triangle between Bex, Nick, and Freddie was sufficiently tied up. It sort of felt like Bex might still end up with Freddie after all? I would love to see another installment, but hate to wait another few years!

In all, I loved this book, and would happily read anything the Fug Girls write!

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD.
I had read The Royal We several times a year since its release, and have been waiting to find out what happens to Bex, Nick, and the entire crew.
The Heir Affair was worth that long wait.
Reading this book felt like an overdue reunion with dear friends, and joining them on a roller coaster of a phase. I'm most amazed at how solid Bex and Nick and Freddie evolved into their own characters, versus their real-life royal models. And just as I thought I had the book figured out, Cocks and Morgan threw another curveball (and then a knuckleball, and then a fastball) at me and knocked me off my feet.
This book was such a joy to read. I loved every word, every sentence, every chapter...and I am incredibly satisfied and thrilled for the Lyons/Porters/everyone.

I admit that when I started reading, I realized I had forgotten most of the actual plot of The Royal We, beyond "loosely Kate/Wills/Harry fanfic", but I eventually figured out where we had left off. The Heir Affair was even more soapy than the first book, but a light and funny diversion from real life is exactly what I required and it delivered.